Any Other Way
by shechasescomets
Summary: After he loses her trust, can Ichigo learn to live without Aoyama-kun? Can Kish show that he's changed from treating her like a toy?
1. Wouldn't Have It Any Other Way

**Author's Note: Hi there! This is my first ever fanfiction. I hope it isn't awful! Reviews would be lovely, if you can let me know what I did right and what I did wrong!**

* * *

She'd been sat there for at least half an hour, watching Aoyama-kun play kendo, cheering for him. Her voice was lost amongst the dozens of girls screaming his name, but she knew hers mattered to him, that when he finished his match and put down his sword, he'd have a special smile just for her.

Moe and Miwa were by her side, giggling excitedly. Sometimes, Ichigo felt a little left out in comparison to them, because they both knew the ins and outs of kendo while she...well, she tried her best to listen while Aoyama-kun explained the details of his game, and his wins and crushing losses, but it never stuck. Whenever he lost a match, the trio would walk up to him as he mopped his sweating brow and Ichigo would numb the blow with soothing 'you'll do better next time' speeches, and the other two, Moe particularly, would analyse every single bit of his battle and tell him exactly, with blunt honesty, what he needed to improve on. He would give them a smile, too, but she felt certain it wasn't his widest, happiest smile. That one was hers, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

'Ichigo-san, isn't Aoyama-kun so talented? You're so lucky!' Miwa beamed. Ichigo blushed delicately.

'I sure am!' she replied, with equal zest.

She was right, she was. Aoyama-kun was cute, smart, funny, and, most importantly, nice. Every girl her age - or not - at school had had a crush on him at one point, and every time he pecked her on the lips or squeezed her hand in his, she understood why. Of course, this carried with it a small problem: jealousy. Scanning the room, she couldn't even begin to count the amount of girls she saw who were prettier, with long, blonde, curly hair like wheat-fields, or huge, sparkling eyes and full spidery eyelashes, or nicer girls - girls who did charity work, or volunteered at old peoples' homes or orphanages or...or...saved the world from invading aliens? That was her duty, and surely saving billions of lives was worth more than curves or plump, red lips.

Her little reverie was interrupted by Moe brushing past her.

'...going to the toilet. If the match finishes, don't...don't wait up!' she whispered to them before scooting out of the way.

Ichigo turned to Miwa, her smile fading a tiny bit. The girl with the pixie cut was absorbed in Aoyama-kun's match again. Miwa knew Moe better than she did. Why did Moe leave so unceremoniously? Why didn't Moe want them to wait for her? Was she okay? Was something wrong? Had she said something to upset her?

'Miwa-san?'

The crowd erupted in a resounding cheer, girls stood up on the benches they had been seated on, clapping their hands furiously and shrieking, boys roaring and making thumbs-up gestures. Aoyama-kun, vaguely visible amongst the heads of excited classmates, bowed, as did his opponent. Miwa, too, was clapping, her grin stretchig from ear to ear.

'D...did he win? Miwa-san?'

'He won, Ichigo-san! He won! I bet you're so proud!'

Worried as she was about Moe, Ichigo couldn't help but be filled with elation for her boyfriend. He'd be so happy! He was always in such a good mood after winning a match, and his moods were contagious, too. When he was in good moods, he was extra-sweet, taking her out on dates to the park where they'd sit under a cherry blossom tree and just talk for hours, and then he'd buy her ice-cream, and he'd walk her home and shyly kiss her on her doorstep. When he'd lost matches, he was less animated, but still her Aoyama-kun, and she wouldn't have him any other way.

She skipped down from her row on the benches, Miwa in tow, looking to meet him to congratulate him before he left the room to change.

Other people, it seemed, had the same idea. At least a dozen people ran up to him, clamouring for his attention, shouting out encouragement and praise. One or two girls were even ripping pages out of their notebooks, asking for his autograph. A tiny amount of people were consoling the boy who'd lost, arms around his shoulders and saying that he just needed to practice a little more - after all, Aoyama-kun had been playing kendo for years.

Ichigo didn't manage to reach him. He looked up briefly, and she could have sworn that he saw her and flashed the very faintest of a smile at her, but he turned around and walked in the direction of the changing rooms.

'Aw, we just missed him, huh?' Miwa cooed, second-hand disappointment for Ichigo. 'Never mind. He'll probably come and see you when he's changed! Let's wait here.'

Miwa's optimism was infectious. Whenever Ichigo was in a bad mood (like when she had to work long hours at the cafe, or, god forbid, when she had a particularly grueling battle with a Chimera Anima), it didn't take much for her to be giggling with her friends again. Of course, Moe and Miwa could never, ever know that Ichigo was part of Tokyo Mew Mew, so, in a way, she felt a tiny bit distant from them, but, of the duo, she felt ashamed to admit that she preferred Miwa of late. Miwa gave her advice on Aoyama-kun, and Ichigo gave Miwa advice on any boy who took her fancy. Moe, well...Moe had been acting a little strangely lately, acting awkwardly around the two of them. She couldn't really blame her, though. Moe's parents were currently divorcing, and though Moe had been giggly as usual at first, she'd started to retreat.

Aoyama-kun didn't show up after five minutes, nor ten. It had gotten to fifteen when she grabbed Miwa by the arm and pulled her in the direction of the changing rooms.

'He's a bit late, isn't he? We'll go find him!'

The changing rooms themselves were at the end of a small corridor. The boys' changing room and girls' changing room were side-by-side, complete with showers, toilet cubicles, and little lockers for valuables such as mobile phones and money. There was also a relatively large storage room, where kendo swords and clothing were stored along with equipment for other sports: football, rugby, hockey, tennis, ping-pong. Aoyama-kun would probably be in the storage room by now, putting away his things.

The creaky old handle opened without much resistance, but opening the door proved difficult - there was something, or rather, someone, in the way.

'Um, sorry!' Ichigo squeaked, preparing to bow apologetically to whoever it is she'd just shoved out of the way.

It was her Aoyama-kun, stood amongst fraying tennis nets and flushed red. Her lips had just upturned in a smile, when, behind him, she saw Moe, hastily smoothing out her collar and looking like a deer caught in headlights.

Ichigo froze.


	2. Aftermath

**Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews on my first chapter! I'd like to clarify a little - I don't hate Aoyama. I think he's a great guy! I might write some future fanfiction with Masaya x Ichigo or something, but for the purpose of storytelling, he's a bit of a douche right now. As always, read and tell me what you liked/didn't like!**

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Anyone who was observing would have found the entire situation comical, if in a tragic way. Aoyama was stood, tennis net wrapped around his foot and hockey sticks uncomfortably leaning against his side, the faintest splotch of garish pink lipstick towards the side of his own mouth, practically hiding Moe like incriminating evidence. Moe herself was wide-eyed, with all the flush draining out of her face to be replaced with a sickly white colour, her collar and skirt slightly ruffled and her honey-blonde bob mussed. Ichigo, door handle still in her hand, stared at the two of them like she'd just witnessed a particularly gruesome murder.

Miwa reacted first, grabbing a hold of Ichigo's shoulder to steel her.

'I-Ichigo-san, it...it's not what it l-looks like!' Aoyama finally garbled. He'd lost that usual confident demeanor.

That was a mistake, admittedly. The oldest trope in the book. If anything, it just confirmed the obvious.

Ichigo said nothing. A sickly feeling was rising in her stomach and threatening to force its way out of her. This - this explained why Moe had been being so distant around her. No way was this a one time thing. Was it?

'H-how l-long?'

'Ichigo...' Aoyama practically pleaded. That was his 'be reasonable' tone of voice. He often used it when she called him, angry that Ryou had made her work another shift, or Mint had sat in a chair and sipped tea all day, or when she'd watched a very sad movie and just wanted someone to cheer her up. For those situations, it was appropriate, but not for this.

'How long?' She'd bitten the inside of her cheek, trying to sound determined and strong. This was the voice she used when confronting the aliens, her 'standing up for herself' voice.

'A m-month, I-Ichigo-san, b-but we were g-going to stop t-today b-because we felt...we felt bad doing this t-to you, I-I'm sorry, Ichigo-san, I-' Moe, shaking, spoke at last, emerging from behind Aoyama.

A month. Ichigo and Aoyama had been dating exclusively for two months, and she'd liked him since the beginning of that school year. That meant that half of their relationship, he'd felt like this, that when he'd morphed into the Blue Knight and saved her life and the lives of the other Mews, he'd been thinking of Moe, too. A month.

Like a punctured tyre, Ichigo deflated visibly. Saying nothing, she turned, wrenched open the door and broke into a run down the corridor into the girls' changing rooms, the clatter of her shoes and the slamming of a door audible.

* * *

It didn't take long for Miwa to find her in the toilets, sat leaning against the partition between two cubicles. Her friend bit her lip. Ichigo's face was blank.

Miwa walked fully into the room, which was mercifully empty.

'A-are you okay, Ichigo-san?'

Ichigo's response was to let out a strangled sob, which then morphed into a gag. Bracing herself, she ran over to an opened cubicle and began to vomit, clutching the toilet seat. Miwa followed, kneeling by her side and, with a cool hand, pushed the redhead's sweaty fringe out of her face, making soothing sounds until Ichigo had finished. Large tear tracks had started to appear down Ichigo's face, smearing the tiny amount of mascara she'd applied into smudged streaks.

'I...I...I thought he meant it when he s-said he loved me,' she mumbled, in between sobs.

Miwa wasn't sure what she should reply to that. Her natural response, as 'best-friend-of-heartbroken-girl', would be to say something along the lines of 'forget about him, he's pathetic!', because she, too, couldn't deny that she had assumed Aoyama loved Ichigo. Miwa had never had a proper relationship before, short of little crushes and flirting. Seeing Aoyama and Ichigo walking around school together hand-in-hand, or sharing lunches and giggling adorably, or watching Ichigo blush and go daydreamy at the sheer mention of his name, had seemed a lot like love to her. She'd kind of gotten used to them being a 'couple'. It felt right. She had expected them to keep on dating right through high school, college, jobs, and settle down and marry and maybe have children, and she felt certain that Moe had shared the view, too. Moe...

Ichigo carried on without a response.

'H...how could she? I-I mean, s-she even said we were adorable t-together!'

She was greeted with a hand on her back.

'How could I not n-notice? Some girlfriend I was if I c-couldn't even tell my own b-boyfriend was...was...cheating on me!'

Miwa pulled her into a hug. Ichigo sank into it, clinging to her. Miwa got the vague sensation that tears were wetting her school uniform, but she felt it'd be rude to inform her. What was she supposed to do in this situation? Sometimes, the only thing one could do was listen. If Ichigo wanted to pour her heart out, she would listen as best as she could.

The door swung open again. Moe entered, her own eyes looking teary.

'I-Ichigo? Can I...can I talk to you?'

Upon hearing her voice, Ichigo, still inside the cublicle, burrowed her head into Miwa's shoulder. _No, no, no,_ she thought. The very last thing she wanted was for Moe to see her in this state, to know she'd been hurt by it. If Moe walked a little further, she'd be able to see them, and then, what would Moe do? Would she pretend to feel bad or would she go back to Aoyama and giggle about how upset they'd made her? Did she actually feel bad or was she just coming here to blame something else, to try to soften the blow, to invent some ridiculous, improbable explanation as to why there was more of her lipstick on Aoyama than there was on her? She didn't want to deal with Moe, not now, not ever.

It was Miwa who took the initiative, standing up and walking out of the cubicle.

'Moe, I think you should leave.'

'Miwa-san, I...I just want to explain to I-Ichigo!'

'What is there to explain? It doesn't seem like you left any room to explain, to be honest. The last thing Ichigo wants is to see you. Just leave. Please.'

Ichigo heard the scuffling of shoes as Miwa pawed at the ground, shocked at her own little display of dominance. Miwa was usually the shy one in their group, her bubbly side reserved for a small few. To see her stand up for her warmed Ichigo a tiny bit - a true friend? Through a small gap between the floor and cubicle, Ichigo saw Moe's patent school shoes dither slightly and then turn on their heels towards the door again. The door slammed unceremoniously.

* * *

School had finished and Ichigo had spent most of it in a daze. When she'd been set a quick maths test to do, she'd just stared, fighting the urge to run out of the room and sob until the bell finally rang for the end of the school day. Moe and Miwa were in her class. Miwa had passed her a handkerchief at the very start of the lesson, just in case, and Moe, who sat a few rows in front of her, had kept on turning around to look at her, looking quite teary herself.

Now, the Mew Mew gang was at Cafe Mew Mew.

Mint, as per usual, was reclining in a chair, sipping tea blithely. Pudding was amusing the customers by somersaulting around after she'd delivered their food to them, and amassing quite a large collection of tips, too. Perhaps that was the reason Ryou was allowing her to do it. Zakuro was, it seemed, the only one doing her job properly - although, she brought a new meaning to 'service with a smile'. With her, it was more like 'service with an obviously forced smile.'

Lettuce and Ichigo had been placed on kitchen duty, helping Keiichiro perfect the cakes and then clean up dirty plates. It wasn't going too well. Lettuce, they had soon discovered, was absolutely awful at both: if they gave her a plate to wash, she'd find it too slippery for her hands and nearly drop it, and if she was in charge of icing a delicate rose onto a birthday cake, she'd blot it somehow. The kindest option, therefore, was to let her make sure they had all of the ingredients they needed.

Ichigo was icing a particularly large birthday cake - one tier, but with a sponge cake filling and a pastel-coloured marzipan butterfly on the top. 'Happy birthday, Ayumu-chan!' she iced, though her hands felt shaky. The elaborate curve she was supposed to design on the 'y' quavered a little, and she poured more icing onto it to cover it. She hoped 'Ayumu-chan' would be too happy that someone had given her a cake to notice any errors on it.

A teardrop fell onto the icing. _Damn,_ thought Ichigo. She was crying, and at work, too! She couldn't let herself cry, could she? No. If she cried now, she'd end up telling everything to the Mew Mews, and what if they started to hate Aoyama-kun? She felt certain that, although he'd betrayed her, their relationship could be fixed. After all, he was the Blue Knight. He'd gone that far to protect her. There was no way he'd have just let her run out of the room crying, there was absolutely no way, knowing Aoyama-kun, that he'd gone through the rest of the day without a second thought towards Ichigo. Maybe he'd sent Moe after her. Maybe he did genuinely feel bad. Maybe Miwa shouldn't have been so harsh to Moe, then, if the two of them were going to end it?

'Hey, hey, no crying on my cakes.' Keiichiro, through blurry vision, dabbed at the splotches on the pastry. _Oh_, Ichigo thought.

'Ichigo-san? Are you okay?' Lettuce put down a bag of flour, causing a small amount of white dust to fly up. She made her way over to Ichigo.

'I-I'm okay. It's just...it's just, well, nothing. Honestly. Just stress. I'm fine.'

That hurt, lying to her friends. Anyone should be able to notice that no, she wasn't fine, but if the Mews knew Ichigo, they knew that she would always come clean in the end. Still, Lettuce, who made her way back over to making an ingredients inventory after patting Ichigo on the shoulder, couldn't help but feel how unlike Ichigo it was to be so...so...secretive.

'Iiichigo-saaan! Aoyama-kun is here to see you, na no da!' Pudding slammed open the door and began to practically sing. She didn't notice that Ichigo had dropped her sachet of icing.

It was true. Following Pudding, who, remarkably, hadn't noticed the wet trails down her cheeks, she tried her best to mop up the worst of the tears. Aoyama-kun stood by the cafe's front door, awkwardly shifting from toe to toe, his hands in his pockets. He hadn't gotten changed out of his school uniform. Like a man condemned, Ichigo walked over to him.

'Ao-Aoyama-kun?'

'Ichigo-san. Let's...let's take a walk, shall we?'

* * *

**Another Author's Note: In terms of timeline, this is meant to be in between episodes 45 and 50, so, Masaya has discovered that he is the Blue Knight, but he hasn't transformed into Deep Blue yet. **


	3. Explanations

**Author's Note: Sorry if I'm updating too much for you all, I'm just so full of ideas! Thanks for your reviews! Before I go on, I'd like to clarify again - yes, I know Aoyama is OOC. He'd probably never cheat on Ichigo in reality. **

* * *

Ichigo shivered in the cold evening of February, stealing a quick glance up at Aoyama-kun, who was walking slightly ahead. She was longing for him to turn around, grin cheesily, yell that what she had found in the storage room was all just a really well-played prank, and then hug her in his strong, warm arms like he had done a hundred times before.

However, the closer they got to the park, the less likely that outcome seemed. Aoyama-kun's shoulders were set straight, and she could guess what his face looked like right now: one lip crushed between his teeth, brow furrowed, while goosepimples rose up on his exposed forearms. He's wiped his face, Ichigo thought ruefully. That bright pink lipstick might as well have not even been there.

_Speak, dammit,_ she thought. He might have been wordless, but the inside of her mind was like a furious lightshow of questions. _What happened? Why did you do that? Do you still love me? Do I still love you? Why are we here? Please, tell me you don't love Moe more than me? What's going to happen with the whole Blue Knight thing? Are you going to break up with me? Am I going to break up with you?_

He swung open the iron gate to the park and cherry blossoms bloomed into view, the first sign of a rather early spring. A petal carpet was forming on the floor, amongst puddles from recent rainfalls. She meandered around them, little tiny shreds of palest pink sticking to her leather school shoes. She picked them off, one-legged, eyes pricking as Aoyama-kun didn't even acknowledge that she'd lagged behind. It seemed so trivial to be upset at this.

Aoyama-kun finally came to a stop at a park bench, where he seated himself, hardly even noticing the icy fingers of frost that had spread upon it.

'Ichigo, look.' He didn't even look up to see her, as she awkwardly dithered between sitting by his side or standing in front of him.

'This whole thing. Look. I, um, well. See. This whole thing, with you, it's gotten too much, I, see. I got stressed. Okay?'

'...What?' Ichigo quavered.

Aoyama-kun inhaled deeply.

'Ichigo, you're a Mew. As much as I'd love to say I do, that will always be the side of you that I don't love. Look, I get that you have to save the world and everything. I get that you've probably saved my own skin at least twenty times by now. But do you know how hard it is to stare at your phone for hours and hours waiting for you to call, not sure if you even will call? Do you know how hard it is to plan a date with you, and the next minute, you're on TV fighting some godforsaken freak? Do you know how hard it is to constantly see you in danger, everywhere, when every second of every day you or I could get killed by some monstrous alien reject? Ichigo, do you know? It's so stressful. You wouldn't understand.'

'And then, this one time, before I found out you were a Mew, you were late to a date by two hours. Two hours, Ichigo. So I called Moe, asking if you were with her. We met up and searched for you. We looked at your house, we looked at that cafe you work at, but we couldn't find you. So we sat here. Right on this bench. And then we kissed. It just happened - don't look at me like that, Ichigo - and then it just kept on going on. When I found out you were a Mew, I thought, well, that explains it, and then all the Blue Knight stuff happened and I was waking up out of that whole thing with cuts, bruises, injuries I couldn't keep hiding. I got so stressed. Remember that time I was away from school for three days, sick? Moe came round to visit. She brought me chocolates. You didn't.'

'I meant to end it today. I felt wrong, I felt bad for you, especially since I'm sworn to protect you as Blue Knight. That's why Moe was a bit miserable today. I texted her telling her to meet me in the storage room since we needed to talk. But then...you know. It just happened. We kissed a bit. Then you walked in. I was going to tell her it was wrong, but, we were interrupted. Ichigo, please.'

A myriad of emotions washed over Ichigo. It just happened. That phrase reverberated around her - how does a thing like that just happen? Ichigo was a great fan of planning things. With dates, she'd plan an outfit the night before to make sure she looked as pretty as possible, plan in her head exactly what would happen on that date, the route going home, words to say to him in a particular situation (even though those words often got lost when she got embarrassed). She didn't see how cheating on your girlfriend could be a logical step in any conversation. Especially not with Moe. Her own best friend.

Then...what was it, 'you wouldn't understand?' When Aoyama-kun was out waiting, worried about why she hadn't returned his calls, Ichigo was probably in the clutches of some evil, unnatural beast, maybe at death's door, maybe she and her four teammates were fighting their way out of the maw of some horrific creation of Pie's doing. When he was trudging back home after she hadn't met him, feeling a little disappointed, maybe she'd just vanquished the monster and was running right to where they'd agreed to meet, her grin dying quickly as she saw he wasn't there. She wanted to scream all of this to him, yell how unfair that was of him to blame her for all of the stress, but a queasy feeling was worming its way through her gut. If Moe, rather than she, had been made leader of the Mews, if Moe had been dating Aoyama-kun, not her, would Moe had owned up straight away? 'Hey, Aoyama-kun! Don't worry or anything, but I'm part of a five-girl group who has to risk death on a daily basis to save you all. See you at five!' Would Moe have kept it a secret?

It became painfully obvious to Ichigo that she was crying. Big, ugly tears ran down her face and she could only imagine what a sight she looked to Aoyama-kun now. She stood silently, shivering, until her mouth finally shaped words.

'Ichigo, I'm sor-'

'D-don't. J-just don't.'

'What?'

'Don't s-say you f-felt bad for me. D-do you know how pa-pathetic that makes me f-feel? Oh, I-Ichigo, I'm s-sorry I c-cheated on you with your b-best friend, it m-made me feel b-bad!'

'Maybe I said the wrong thing, okay? Maybe I-'

'Maybe you s-shouldn't have done it.'

The stony silence around them confirmed that she had voiced his thoughts aloud. Ichigo felt as sick as she had before, and the beginnings of stress tears were beginning to form in Aoyama-kun's eyes. He'd balled his hands up into fists. She'd dug her feet so hard into the ground that she'd both scuffed the toe of her shoe and torn up a cherry blossom petal. Was there nothing either of them could say at all? Could he not take her hand and say he was sorry, that he didn't mean what he'd said, that he loved her, her and only her? She wanted that more than anything else in the world. His brown eyes showed no such intentions.

For the second time that day, she found herself running away.

The cold wind bit at her ears and she felt tears slipping off her face, her head down. No one could see her like this. No one from school, no one from the cafe, no stranger, no friend, no foe. The cafe. She couldn't go back there. She didn't feel like she wanted to work, and the cafe was so close to the park that Aoyama would definitely see her enter and then he'd come and talk to her and the other Mews would have to find out and she could guess all of their reactions. Mint would tut, sip her tea, have a brief speech on how Ichigo should have known or seen, Lettuce would awkwardly stand by her side and offer inexperienced but well-meaning pieces of advice, Pudding would envelope her in a massive hug and force her to watch her do tricks around the cafe or maybe she'd prank Aoyama, Zakuro would give her a sympathetic glance and say she'd do better next time.

Ichigo strained her ears, her cat-like senses amplifying her hearing as she ran down sidewalks and across roads in no particular direction. She could have sworn that she heard Aoyama shouting her name, but the wind was stealing those words, and she got the foggiest thought that maybe she was running to get away from that sound, maybe some subconscious part of her knew exactly where she was going, maybe a long way home or something just to get him off her trail, since speaking to him would obviously hurt, maybe she didn't need a place to go but just needed to cry, to run away from any hint of feelings for him.

The honking of cars snapped her out of the corners of her mind, and she barely had time to look and see the car before she braced herself for a massive hit, and sure enough it was there, a loud smack as she hit the warmth of...a pair of arms?

She opened her scrunched-up eyes.

'Hey, kitten.'


End file.
